<p>Raising the adopted child only in the adoptive parent’s(s)’ culture(s) without trying to provide access to the adopted child’s birth culture in case he/she is interested in learning about it as a child/young adult is IMO just as bad as force feeding the birth culture on said adopted child when he/she has clearly shown he/she’s not interested. </p>
<p>Both extremes are bad because they aren’t allowing the adopted child access to each of those cultures on his/her own terms. That, IMO, is key.</p>
<p>Exactly! Or in my mom’s case, she and her three brothers were born in different countries (England, Spain, America), her mom was from England, dad was from Hungary (born to Hungarian Romani but after his dad passed away at a young age, he was raised by his mom and a Spanish stepfather). Should they have been raised with all of those cultures? Of course not, that seems ridiculous. She is still, to this day, a dual Spanish-American citizen but feels no connection to Spain and does not consider it “her culture”. </p>
<p>OTOH, there is a huge difference between entrenching your child in their country of origin’s culture and not allowing them to explore it at all. There have been a few posts that suggest not raising them in that culture means not allowing any questions or any exploration of that culture. That’s a bit ridiculous of a leap IMO.</p>
<p>Not necessarily as this practice was very commonplace in many mainstream American families with adopted children from different countries/ethnicities until the last few decades. Even then, there are still some families where this practice is still commonplace. </p>
<p>Several college classmates who were Asian or other “visible minority” adoptees who were raised in such homes had serious identity adjustment issues they only started working through as undergrads because their adoptive parents didn’t provide access to their birth cultures even after they expressed interest in learning more about them. </p>
<p>This took place in the '80s and ‘90s, when the older practice of only raising the child in the American adoptive parent’s(s’) culture without taking the adopted child’s preferences if he/she expressed interest in learning about his/her birth culture into account had already been considered limiting and wrong.</p>
Oh, mothers-in-law! My H’s younger sister was actually his cousin. Due to family problems, she was adopted by his parents at age two, and I have a feeling it was more due to family obligation than anything else. When I was pregnant with S2, my MIL said she hoped it was a girl, since she didn’t have any “blood” granddaughters. I said “But T has two daughters, what about them?” and she said “But they’re not blood.” She must have caught the look on my face because she was like:“But I love them just the same!” Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ignorant remarks come with the territory when you’re adopted. A woman I used to work with expressed surprise that I was still in touch with my brother, who is also adopted “because you’re not natural brother and sister.” Seriously.</p>
<p>And Samuelsson is interested in his roots. You might say, all of them. </p>
<p>If you just think of family as “normally” about getting pregnant and having them put the swaddled baby in your arms, you can get stuck in that thinking. It colors your reactions, you think we mean some kid from Russia has to be immersed in Russian culture. </p>
<p>Romani, if you had been adopted, can you imagine ever being interested in bits about your own heritage? I’m guessing your upbringing included hints of Spanish or Hungarian influence. Others talk about Polish foods- is it wrong to have experienced that, though you were born here, to parents born in America, grew up in Anywhere USA? Do you really have to know your birth parents to be curious about the culture they are from?</p>
<p>Understand that we all love our children fiercely, do our best, even if we make mistakes. There are some things we try to spare them and many ways we are open.</p>
<p>LF- I already said I’m interested in my heritage even with bio parents. </p>
<p>I’ve only ever had one heritage food in my entire life- dirty bread- which I think I’ve had all of five times in my 22 years. As for “influences”- I think I’ve had some European influence coming from the fact that my mom was raised in Europe but it’s not country/culture specific, not by a long shot. I was raised very “American” by two American parents. Even with my mom being raised by immigrants, she can’t tell me really anything about my heritage… her parents didn’t like to talk about their countries of origin very much (especially her dad) and they’ve been gone for almost 20 years now. It’s not just adopted kids that are disconnected from their “heritage”. </p>
<p>No, I don’t know what it’s like to be adopted. Again, I just don’t buy into the idea that we’re somehow born into a culture and need to be raised there or raised with it. I’m not at all advocating for there to be no allowance of the child’s birth country, but I don’t think it’s necessary to try to incorporate it into daily life.</p>
<p>Curiosity about heritage isn’t always a cultural thing. American adoptees from American birth mothers are often curious about their heritage, as well. I find all this talk about food a little odd though. Many Americans eat in all of these restaurants and don’t really look at it as a cultural expedition. It’s just dinner.</p>
<p>And if your actual lineal heritage didn’t match theirs, if you were Romani and they weren’t, you might be curious. No one should force it, overplay it and overwhelm. But I use the word “acknowledge.” Like, Samuelsson is not purely Swedish. (R, I used you because I know you are interested.)</p>
<p>Our family cultural influences/heritage, btw, are more than foods. Can be humor, how tales are told, how homes are run, what holidays, manners and manner- and, of course, religion. Imo, when you realize that, it’s easy to add.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone in this thread is saying culture is “somehow innate.” I think the issue is two-fold. First, LOTS of adopted children are curious about their birth mothers and families. They want to know more about them. If they were born in a foreign country, then that curiosity may extend to their birth nation. Second, if children are of a different race, then reality is that a stranger encountering them will see that race and whether or not they want to be, the child will be “identified” with that race to some extent.</p>
<p>For example, look at the story about the Orthodox Jewish family that adopted a bi-racial child. No matter how perfect his parents and his family life, it’s not as if he’s never going to notice the fact that he’s part black. That’s his reality. It’s an issue that at some point is going to have to be dealt with. You don’t just wave a magic wand and say “You grew up in a white family and therefore you are culturally white. The color of your skin doesn’t matter.” I don’t think adoptive parents are making him feel different when they acknowledge the fact that his skin is a different color; he’s undoubtedly already figured that out. </p>
<p>I don’t think any of us–including yours truly–should be handing out advice to adoptive parents as to how to best raise their children. It’s a very personal decision. Expert guidance may and probably should be sought. The rest of us should not throw stones at well-meaning parents, even if they handle these issues in a different way than we would. As far as I know, there’s not some proven, easy to follow guide as to how you should best raise children in a transracial or transnational adoption. I don’t think there could be because EVERY child is an INDIVIDUAL and every child is going to process these issues differently. Look at Bromfield’s post. One of her grandchildren has had a very hard time dealing with the fact that he is adopted, but yet isn’t particularly interested in the culture of the nation where he was born. </p>
<p>As I said, adoption is common in my family. I’m “into” genealogy. I had a lot of trouble trying to trace the family history. I decided as a result of that experience to draw up a complete-or as complete as possible–list of all my paternal grandparents’ descendants. (There’s well over 500.) That meant listing adopted and step kids too. I wrote to all of my cousins to get help doing this. I have too many for me to know the birth dates of all their children and especially their grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the names of their spouses, etc.</p>
<p>It was odd to see the different reactions. The wife of one of my cousins threatened me and warned me that no family tree should show in any way, shape or form that half of their kids are adopted. Another wife of one of my cousins listed her adopted children’s birth names and wanted them included in the family tree. Two different ways of handling the issue–and I think both are entitled to handle this the way they choose.</p>
<p>The extent of emphasizing one’s racial heritage (which is really what you are talking about) is a tough call and a fine line for everyone in America, not limited to adoptees. People want to be proud of <em>who</em> they are, yet focussing on differences can widen the racial divide. It makes more sense to me to tell one’s child (of any race), “You were born in Korea, but our family is American,” and let their level of interest and our culture take its course.</p>
<p>We told ours, “We are family. And that includes a little of this and a little of that.” Done well, kids absorb it. Done well, you look for their lead. Or, where they stumble. Mine are interested in the fact that they are part NA. Not even enough to get the local history right. But it does form part of their identity. We never set up a teepee.</p>
<p>No, Bay, I’m not only talking about racial heritage. I just think the difference is likely to be more self-evident if the child has a different skin color than his/her parents. It’s still an issue though when the child is of the same race.</p>
<p>Bromfield’s grandchildren were born in Russia and her step-D and son-in-law made an effort to expose them to Russian culture.</p>
<p>Korean–one example I used–is not a race. My D’s friend’s parents didn’t teach her about “Asian culture.” They made sure she was exposed to Korean culture.</p>
<p>oldmom exposed her Chinese-born D to Chinese culture. </p>
<p>I don’t think the Korean culture and the Chinese culture are all that much alike. </p>
<p>I recently saw the movie “Filomena” about an elderly Irish woman who came to the US searching for the child she gave up for adoption as a toddler. One touching moment in the film comes when a journalist notices the lapel pin the son is wearing in a photo taken when he was an adult. It’s a celtic harp–and the American family he was adopted into wasn’t Irish.</p>
<p>“I know a lot of bi-racial children that look more like the race of one biological parent, rather than a hybrid of the two. Are the parents then supposed to raise their biological bi-racial children according to what race their children’s appearance favors?” </p>
<p>Actually, this describes one of my children perfectly. I am divorced and raised this child-- who appears to be 100% a different race than I am-- along with others who do appear to be biracial. Because this child is treated as a person of this different race, kiddo has embraced that, taking many more courses in that culture in college, even working in a business targeted to that race. So, while I think personalities are differently, kids who appear to be of one race may be treated differently and it might be helpful to familiarize them with that culture. </p>
<p>One of my kids has an adopted friend who was visibly Hispanic and the parents were not. In this area, there are many recent immigrants from the country of her birth. The parents put the kid in a program to learn Spanish so that the kid would feel like all the other kids in our area with parents from that country. In an area where the population from that culture has been in the US for generations, it is possible that it’s not a big deal. But, here, if people see this kid, they will assume kiddo speaks Spanish.</p>
<p>While there are substantial differences, there are also many similarities due to common historical cross-cultural ties/exchanges going back centuries up till the late 19th century. </p>
<p>One common joke my Korean and Korean-American colleagues and friends love to make is how the extent of their birth country’s(SKorea) preservation of old-school Confucian social norms is such that they’re “more Chinese” than current-day Chinese. </p>
<p>To some extent, they have a point considering the Maoists tried eradicating such social norms/historical consciousness in Mainland China after 1949 and especially during the Cultural Revolution while Hong Kong and the ROC(Taiwan) became so westernized due to Western/Japanese colonialism and the fact old-school Confucianism became the convenient go-to scapegoat for China’s problems back* then that a lot of those norms were tossed out by many educated youths during my grandparents’ early-mid childhood years**….to some regret of later generations as there’s a feeling that the baby was tossed out with the dirty bathwater. </p>
<ul>
<li>While some blame was warranted, the extent of scapegoating was such it was over simplistic and reductionistic considering the complexity and interplay of factors in China’s colonialist domination by Western/Japanese powers from the mid-19th century till the end of WWII. It is especially ironic considering how later generations of East/SE Asian and Western scholars and economists cited long-standing Confucian influences as a major factor in the economic rise of Japan, SKorea, and other “Asian Economic Tigers” in the mid-late 20th century…</li>
</ul>
<p>** May 4th Movement in 1919.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve noticed the difference depending on whether I’m in NYC where there’s still a large Chinese immigrant and Chinese-American population which maintains some linguistic fluency with their/their immigrant ancestor’s birth language or not. </p>
<p>In NYC, I’m frequently assumed to know how to speak Mandarin(true) or many other dialects of Chinese. On the flip side, this assumption tends to not be nearly as much of a case in the near/all-White suburbs where most/all Chinese/Asian-Americans tend to either be second-generation or later or so eager to assimilate that they’ve disposed of all vestiges of their family’s birth culture…including language. Sometimes this extends to even basic respect for other Chinese/Asians/-Americans*. </p>
<ul>
<li>Acting snobby and/or disparaging most/everything about their birth culture, “FOBs”, or folks like myself who are American-born, but who were interested in preserving some aspects of our parents’/family birth culture as part of our identity as Asian-Americans.<br></li>
</ul>
<p>This factor is one reason why some immigrant and American-born Chinese/Asian-Americans who retain some interest in preserving some aspects of our family’s birth culture tend to be wary of our highly/completely assimilated counterparts. </p>
<p>As someone who straddles and has encountered rejection from certain members of both camps at times before they were set straight by friends from the same respective groups who knew me well, I’ve seen firsthand how it can be a source of friction.</p>
<p>Give it a rest. Please. Parents are not always to blame for their kids issues. People who have different opinions or values are not de facto “snobby”. And sometimes people are “rejected” because they are annoying or otherwise unpleasant to be around.</p>
<p>I was mentioning the above not to necessarily blame adoptive parents or any parents as this issue is more of a tension between a critical mass of highly/completely assimilated Asian-Americans vs recent immigrants/those who choose not to be as assimilated. </p>
<p>It is merely to make an observation of one common Asian-American experience from the post about differences in how someone is perceived if they retained some aspects of birth culture like birth culture language.</p>
<p>And no, calling someone “FOB” because they perceive someone is a fresh immigrant or acting snobby in disparaging most/everything about another culture is not merely “having different opinions or values”.</p>
<p>Seems that most everyone who is deemed to differ from you is called a snob or some other pejorative term.</p>
<p>And posters here are talking about both domestic and international adoptions from many countries. Many adoptees have challenges that are not the fault of the parents. We are not just speaking of asian adoptees/ parents.</p>
<p>Many folks I know who did adopt children from out of the country have made efforts and integrated their lives with the culture of their adoptee’s birth family. That is entirely up to the parents as to how much they decide to do this.</p>
<p>My son’s friend was adopted from South America, and his parents did try to keep that in the picture. Learned Spanish and wanted their son to do the same, tried to to instill a lot of the culture. Kid wanted nothing to do with it. Zero. Rebelled. Became an issue. So they backed off.</p>
<p>Now he’s all into it as he’s out of college. Went for a summer to his home country, looked up relatives including birth mother there–that one didn’t pan out well, but he is doing work and studying Sourth American issues which was driven in part by his ancestry. Sometimes you let the kid decide the direction and pace. He is so sorry he refused to learn Spanish as a child, as he is trying to learn it now. But, hey, the same went with another kid I knew who has no Latino in his ancestry, but married someone from Mexico and is now trying ot learn Spanish which he refused to do as a kid–got kicked out of a school because he was failing Spanish. Now he’s motivated to learn.</p>